nope, I think just a GF. It’s the perfect time in his life to do it, and he’s good enough to make it (won this year on KFT).
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Winning helps keep that “juice” going
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I think the mental side, both in desire and stress management, are the big differentiator. There might be thousands of people with the skill level to play and win on the PGA tour, but only a small percentage with the mental makeup to accomplish that (let alone do it consistently).
I always think of the head pro at a goat track muni I worked at a few times during university. He was in his mid-forties by the time I met him, still built like Nicklaus in his prime, bashed it over 300 with ease and had every shot in the bag. He qualified for a handful of PGA championships as a club pro, made a Monday qualifier or two, and had shot multiple sub 60 rounds at the course he “ran”. Problem is that he seemed to have zero motivation for anything (that included in running the golf business at the course) and would melt down mentally in any sort of real competition. At that point he seemed just sort of resigned to being the best golfer in the area, but just one who never really did anything with it.
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This is probably very underestimated. I play a lot of golf with a guy who tried to make it as a professional player for about 10+ years. His ball striking was good enough to make it on tour, but putting always seemed to elude him. I was having lunch with him and he also confessed that he didn’t really have the same drive as the top players.
Towards the end of his career he worked out at Joey D fitness, and got to spend some time around guys like Fowler and JT as they were coming up. He said they were animals in terms of their work ethic. After playing and practicing in the morning at the same club as them he said he be perfectly content having a few cocktails at lunch and blowing the rest of the day off, but these guys went back out and worked for hours. Talent can only get you so far!
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I’m very late to the party, have read almost all of these threads by Scott Fawcett, and have been amazed and entertained. He tells quite the story! And to take the data and create Decade with it, brilliant.
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I’m a scratch player and the only thing I can do better than Sergio is not throw tantrums in bunkers, though occasionally I want to!
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It is great content and in the words of Azinger, Scott has gotten “validation on steroids”!
Fun to see where all this stuff was born and the great story with zalatoris.
This is really what separates these guys. My stepbrother played a couple mini tours for a while. He dominated locally, but could hardly make a cut on the Tight Lies Tour. There’s a ton of talent out there, but the work and dedication it takes to get to the highest level is the great separator. Not many people have that drive or focus, especially in their youth.
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Agree - know someone who got through q school once to the PGA, played other mini tours, won a web.com event, and could never make it back to the PGA. Such a rough life for all those guys chasing it. If you’re not in the top ~150 in the world, it’s a struggle
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One other main differentiator (unfortunately) is money. When you’re playing a Monday Qualifier and it cost you $1500 to get there, and there’s not much left in the bank, it’s way harder to play well.
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Absolutely. Monday Q Info on Twitter (@acaseofthegolf) is doing a real service for those guys by simply bringing attention to the struggle. You see a lot of donations come in to help guys and it’s so great to see because take away the stress of where the next meal or tank of gas is coming from and these guys can go out and really put forth an effort. I love it.
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I played three rounds in 48 hours on a birthday boys trip a few months ago. Played really poorly on day 2 and was REALLY stiff / had sciatic pain going.
I could not wait to set the sticks in the closet for one to two weeks and forget about golf.
While I was riding home I was thinking of how tough it would be to be driving to a different state, trying to get prepared for another tournament, knowing people had lent you money, maybe having a wife at home who would really like some stability.
My hat goes off to anybody who can make a living doing it.
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These grinders are a different breed. They all want it so bad that they really put themselves in a hole for a long time chasing it. Finances suffer. Relationships suffer. Health suffers. And a lot of these guys chase it for years, sometimes decades.
I played three Dakotas Tour events in my early 20s when I still thought I had a chance at making golf my living. I made one cut, then got Rick-rolled over the weekend. I ground my butt off and those guys made it look easy. I looked in a mirror in an Aberdeen, SD Super 8 after my third event and admitted I wasn’t good enough and I didn’t have what it takes - which was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in regard to the game of golf. I had success at the Junior, high school, and college level, but guys who earn a living playing golf do so because they’re head and shoulders above guys like me.
I set the clubs down for a while after that, got a “real” job, and slipped into a wicked depression.
I wanted to be a professional golfer since before I ever even picked up a club and it took three small time mini tour events to tell me it was never going to happen.
That tells you how passionate and hard working these guys out there grinding week after week, year after year, are.
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great post thanks for sharing that! I have a lot of respect for anyone who has tried to make it as a pro.
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It really is crazy to look back at those threads. It really was the genesis of DECADE and there are at least 5-8 full-time Director of Analytics of MLB, NFL, NBA, & NHL that came directly from that golf forum.
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Thanks! I’m nothing if not a BS’r!
Yes you can see the beginnings of questioning Drive For Show…we only had Strokes Gained Putting at the time and it had just been released if I remember correctly so I really hadn’t owned the ideas yet. BUT I definitely was starting to realize it is why I am usually a pretty good player even without practicing much. I’m pretty lucky to typically drive it very long and can find it at a minimum. Distance is king for sure now though, obviously.
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Working on a presentation for a speech at Wharton this week and came across this when Googling something else…my gawd are the threads on Two Plus Two that are linked here GOLD. Crazy to see me say “I recently took on mentoring a 14 year old” only to see him lose the US Open by one yesterday! If you’re bored crawling through those threads is time well spent.
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Thanks, Scott!!
As an, I like to term it… “aspiring play-ah” … which is of course totally tongue in cheek as I’m really just an average recreational hack 
… but seriously am working on applying the basic principles of DECADE each time I’m out on the course … 
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